 |
|
Nick Meador On Monday, September 17, 2007, at a John Kerry speech on the University of Florida campus in Gainsville, FL, a 21-year-old student named Andrew Meyer was tasered and arrested after posing some lively questions to the Massachusetts senator. The original video posted on CNN.com on 9/18/07 shows what happened pretty accurately: This video takes you out into the lobby following the initial altercation: Here’s a citizen-made, step-by-step analysis of how things escalated (set to “1,2,3,4” by Feist, although I’d rather her music was not associated in any way with this event):
This MSNBC clip displays the manner in which mainstream media covered the incident:
As can be expected – despite one or two commentators pushing the democratic process – Fox News reporters stayed committed to their Bush-friendly, ultra-conservative, semi-fascist role in this clip:
Here are parts 1–3 of the intial student protest:
The peaceful mob was led by an unnamed, but highly-effective male student. It’s amazing how he instructed the student protestors to control their behavior, because a single slip would have been eaten up by the national press. So not only did they not flip any cars or start fires in the middle of the street (cough….MSU basketball riots circa ‘98….cough), they didn’t so much as squash an ant during their march. U of F students approached the university police to file complaints and asked what was going to be done:
If you listen carefully, you’ll notice that the offending police officers were placed on PAID LEAVE. That sounds a little bit like a HOME SUSPENSION in high school. They’re probably on their couch stuffing their faces with Cheetos and Ho-Hos, watching One Life To Live. University of Florida president Bernie Machen spoke about the incident:
He clarified what the police officer said, that the State of Florida will conduct an independent review of the event, after which University administration and students will be allowed to comment on the findings. Even a hashed-out hippy got asked to provide his piece of mind:
A similar (but more localized) incident occurred at MSU last April, when student groups Young Americans for Freedom and MSU College Republicans brought Chris Simcox, of the border-patrolling organization The Minutemen, to speak on campus. SpartanEdge posted extensive video footage of the event. Now the necessary analysis. The First Amendment of the United States of America calls for freedom of speech and an open exchange of ideas and information. When students were arrested at MSU, it was because they were disturbing that open exchange. Offensive and controversial issues have a way of upsetting people and inspiring emotional outbursts. But even if Chris Simcox was the current incarnation of Satan himself, he still has the right to speak. And MSU had the responsibility to protect that right, with the help of police officers. If the arrested students had conducted themselves in a manner that didn’t interrupt the proceedings, they never would have been arrested. If you push offensive people or ideas underground, they will only become more powerful. You have to feed them to the world, making sure people have all the facts, so that a proper decision-making process can occur. At the University of Florida event, Meyer was clearly being obnoxious. His goal was to stir things up, but he did not know he would become a martyr. He wanted to ask Kerry dark and scary, but still important, questions, about why there wasn’t more effort to kick Bush out of office when the election results were so questionable. On the other hand, it’s easy to understand why police would be concerned. The American university climate of late is very volatile. The Virginia Tech shootings were not that long ago, and large schools are still very much on edge. Furthermore, Kerry is kind of a big deal. It’s not the same as a Chris Simcox speech. Simcox represents a very controversial group, but Kerry was almost president of the U.S.! With that said, Meyer did not incite a riot. His words were out of control, but his actions were not. He didn’t fight against the police. He was simply afraid and couldn’t understand why he was being apprehended. By the time the police had Meyer on the ground, he was surrounded by six officers, and was rendered immobile. The use of the taser was completely unnecessary. Meyer spent the night in jail, and the charges against him still stand. This is where the core of the problem lies. In this incident, there was a direct connection between Meyer’s right to speech, and a violent attack on him with a taser gun. Even Kerry was willing to answer his question, and started to do so as the taser was pumping voltage into Meyer’s body, and he was crying “OOWWWW! HELP! HELP!” at the back of the room. We must be very cautious of this type of police behavior. Otherwise, it could become standard protocol to control a person by taser gun. To do so would assume that a person is guilty, and would constitute fascism. Our system of law is built on the assumption that citizens are INNOCENT until proven guilty. Many experienced this first hand at MSU in the spring of 2005, when the basketball team was eliminated from the Final Four tournament. Police in riot gear marched through downtown East Lansing and Cedar Village, shooting tear gas canisters at people who had committed no crime. The police assumed that a riot would start, thus inferring that people were guilty before they had actually done anything. Even if people are drunk, and upset about a sports game, and they gather outside to chant and yell about it, it doesn’t guarantee a riot. Even if destructive riots occurred in the past!
The tear-gased areas looked like nothing short of a war zone. I know. I lived at the corner of Grove St and Albert Ave in downtown East Lansing. When people were blinded, screaming and crying for help, I brought them into my home and let them wash their eyes out in my sink. But the gas crept into my house, and I hid in the basement until the panic was over. It was the most horrific memory of my entire experience at MSU. There is only one video on YouTube of the abuse of police power in April 2005, but there are hundreds addressing the tasering at University of Florida. This is the future of journalism! Citizens will fill in the gaps that mainstream press leaves open. Now, there will be no gatekeepers. Now, facts will assemble themselves into truth quicker than ever. Now, we will begin to exchange information and serve democracy in a way that hasn’t been witnessed since Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence. And most importantly, from now on, apathy and indifference will increasingly be things of the past. Or at least, that’s how SpartanEdge sees it. |
|
|